<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>indistinguishable from magic by enjolraspermittedit</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29036166">indistinguishable from magic</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/enjolraspermittedit/pseuds/enjolraspermittedit'>enjolraspermittedit</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Octet - Malloy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, God children, Pre-Canon, References to Addiction, Saul is a God and Paula is implied to be somewhat non-human, brief mention of unsuccessful child harm/murder, references to other Malloysicals/Malloyverse characters</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 04:54:05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,231</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29036166</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/enjolraspermittedit/pseuds/enjolraspermittedit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Saul and Paula's child is a bit unusual.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Paula &amp; Little God (Octet), Paula/Saul (Octet), Saul &amp; Little God (Octet)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>indistinguishable from magic</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>So, normally I headcanon Saul as being Paula's husband, and that he just chose to take the form of Little God during his encounter with Marvin. But my theory is starting to change. What if Little God is their daughter?</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Saul and Paula hadn't intended to have children, but they were incredibly grateful for their daughter. They named her Rose, and she was a perfect combination of the two of them. She had Paula's skin and hair, and she had Saul's eyes and face structure. Paula had given birth at home, neither of wanting to go to a hospital. They doubted that any of the nurses would know how to handle a...<i>different</i> family, so to speak.</p>
<p>Rose was normal during her first few months, but things shifted pretty quickly. Namely, <i>she</i> shifted - another trait that she had inherited from Saul. She changed her hair and her eyes and her skin as she pleased. She couldn't talk yet, but she could communicate with her parents nonverbally, especially through mind-reading. She was never interested in looking human. She'd change her skin color from dark brown to dark purple, and she'd change her coily black hair into a glittery fiery red mess. If she wanted her parent's attention, she would turn their phones or computers into a fish or a pterodactyl or a kitten. Both of them worked solely from their devices (at least, that was what they claimed - it was always work, never an addiction), so it was more than a mild inconvenience when they'd be in the middle of something and suddenly their devices would be living creatures.</p>
<p>At the very least, it helped them to temporarily wean off of it.</p>
<p>Not that they neglected Rose - they paid full attention to her, not that they needed to. She was entirely self-sufficient. By the time she learned to talk, she seemingly knew <i>everything</i>. She'd disappear at random times, and when she came back she'd tell her family that she'd visited a different planet. They chalked it up to an active imagination at first, but there was no denying how strange their daughter was. They couldn't write off the shapeshifting as an active imagination. Even if it was a trait that she'd inherited from Saul...well, Saul could only change himself, for the most part. Rose could change <i>anything.</i></p>
<p>There was no reason to put her in school. She was already a genius, and there was no chance that any school would be able to handle her. Saul and Paula weren't exactly discreet about their <i>conditions</i>, but they didn't want to advertise it either. It was difficult enough to fake documents and claim that they'd only been here for a few decades, and now they'd have to hide their daughter as well? No, they refused to believe it. She'd been their kid for eleven years, so as far as anyone was concerned, she was eleven years old.</p>
<p>They should've known that she'd be abnormal, though. Why wouldn't their daughter be like them? In order to create a human, you need two humans.</p>
<p>They decided to change Rose's name. Rather, Rose decided to change her own name. She wanted to be called Little God. The little version of her parents. The name made sense. </p>
<p>They pretended that they were a normal family sometimes. Saul made a support group for Paula's addiction, whilst refusing to treat himself. They made friends. They made <i>Friends.</i> Paula got into cooking. She served her tea to her friends, and she served Tea to her Friends. Saul refused to ever drink her Tea, but they'd have tea together sometimes with Little God. Little God didn't need help like they did, but she'd sit in on the sessions with their Friends sometimes (invisible, of course). </p>
<p>The weird thing was, even though Little God wasn't an addict, she'd watch her father stay up all night on his phone contacting people, and sometimes she'd insist on doing it herself. One night in particular, she had a lot of fun sending an audio message to a man named Marvin. Marvin didn't believe her when she said she was a God, so she decided to prove it to him the next day.</p>
<p>Needless to say, Marvin showed up at Saul's support center soon enough. Little God thought it would be a good idea to turn everyone's device into fish, because then they'd be forced to break their addictions. No one else in the group thought that was a good idea - in fact, Saul and Paula eventually told her she had to stop going (not that she obeyed them, of course).</p>
<p>It's not like Little God was cruel or anything, she just liked having fun. She was actually sweet to the members, doing things like giving Henry <i>real</i> candy (and then, later on, healthier food) and helping Velma pick out gifts for her girlfriend. Even Marvin warmed up to her at some point, and she stopped playing her pranks around him, understanding that all it did was upset him even further. She decided not to be offended over the fact that Marvin didn't fully believe in her, and Marvin decided not to blame her for his crisis of faith.</p>
<p>Some days, Little God didn't go to the meetings at all. She travelled across dimensions, befriending Starchildren and dancing high schoolers and broken composers who would be a good fit for the Friends Of Saul. She taught herself how to swim, something that was easier when she had her mermaid tail. She'd venture out into town on her own, sneaking into school playgrounds and showing the kids her abilities, only to disappear if any adult dared to get too close to them. When she got particularly bored, she'd do something to destroy herself, laughing loudly as her cells were reborn. She contacted physicists (including dead ones), asking them if she could please demonstrate her skills? She usually didn't get a response, or if she did they'd accuse her of being a magician or an illusionist rather than a scientist. She was none of those things, of course. Only her parents truly knew what she was.</p>
<p>She had normal days too, days where she could pass as a normal preteen. In some ways, that was when she had the most fun. Sure, it was great to show off what she could do, but it was even better to pretend to be average, to blend in with her surroundings, and laugh to herself as she tricked the people around her. They'd never know.</p>
<p>On occasion, she'd do risky things. She knew from the dark side of the internet that there were people who wouldn't mind doing the exact same thing that Marvin's co-workers had been curious about. How she loved using her immortality to catch awful criminals - she'd "die", then immediately be reborn, and give them a taste of their own medicine. Then the dark web would have one less user. </p>
<p>Little God never intended to punish nonbelievers, or to scare people off. Really, it was just her way to have fun, or her way to show people how easily their belief systems could change. She was careful not to manipulate science <i>too much</i> in any dimension. She was cautious - she didn't want to cause any catastrophes. After all, if she messed up anything too badly, that wouldn't be very good for her - every single world to ever exist was within her, as she had created them. Destroying them would mean that they had never been real, that a part of <i>her</i> had never been real.</p>
<p>And Little God is very real - that is, as long as you believe.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>if it wasn't clear, friends in lowercase just means friends, and in uppercase it means the Friends of Saul. Similarly, tea is just mundane tea whereas Tea is from the Tower Tea Ceremony, etc.</p>
<p>Tumblr - 8tet<br/>Twitter - butchhades<br/>Instagram - thisbrightstar</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>